BBC to launch five new HD channels on Freeview

We still had to fight to get BBC Parliament full screen on freeview, It does seem to be the forgotten channel.

The Parliamentary authorities retain a strict control over broadcasting issues, allied to which I seem to recall that ITV Studios provides the actual coverage (possibly Millbank Studios, which have no HD facilities currently).

Therefore, permission would have to be sought in order to change any cameras, and such work could only be done at certain points in the year (during recess). It is also possible that any such work would be carried out in conjunction with the refurb of the House which is planned to take place at some point:

Quote:

31 October 2012

The House of Lords House Committee yesterday agreed to publish a Study Group report on options to undertake the essential refurbishment of the Palace of Westminster, including a possible temporary relocation of Parliament.

The House Committee also decided to ask officials to commission a fully costed appraisal of all the options that retain the Palace of Westminster as the long-term home of Parliament and as an iconic building for the nation. They ruled out the idea of a new permanent Parliamentary building elsewhere.

The MPs can go and club together and buy some new HD equipment with their pay rise... Or put it on expenses...
Political coverage, including PMQ's will be available on the other BBC HD channels.

lol making the MPs pay to upgrade Parliament to HD I like it
we will still need the rest of the transmisson chain for the channel to be HD so that it can be a fully HD channel though, can we get them to pay for that too?

Moving BBC Parliament to HD would be more expensive than simply replacing the cameras in the Commons. There are also fixed cameras in the Lords and various committee rooms plus Westminster Hall plus the necessary upgrades of cabling and control rooms.

I agree there would be some justification in upgrading just the Commons as this tends to be the chamber which is most often seen on the News.

As far as BBC Parliament is concerned, this is a sort of electronic version of Hansard and really need not be in HD. Others have pointed out the lower than normal SD bit rate. In fact that is no problem in producing a surprisingly good signal partly because of the very static nature of the shots.

Moving BBC Parliament to HD would be more expensive than simply replacing the cameras in the Commons. There are also fixed cameras in the Lords and various committee rooms plus Westminster Hall plus the necessary upgrades of cabling and control rooms.

I agree there would be some justification in upgrading just the Commons as this tends to be the chamber which is most often seen on the News.

As far as BBC Parliament is concerned, this is a sort of electronic version of Hansard and really need not be in HD. Others have pointed out the lower than normal SD bit rate. In fact that is no problem in producing a surprisingly good signal partly because of the very static nature of the shots.

The BBC always manage to do a HD feed for things like the opening of parliament, I suppose thats done by an OB team for BBC 1/News? but my point is its done when it matters. Also upgrading the commons would be good for things like PMQs not the whole channel yet, just so the feed to other channels (BBC News and BBC1&2) can originate in HD! Important for News as people want it in HD these days!

The BBC always manage to do a HD feed for things like the opening of parliament, I suppose thats done by an OB team for BBC 1/News? but my point is its done when it matters. Also upgrading the commons would be good for things like PMQs not the whole channel yet, just so the feed to other channels (BBC News and BBC1&2) can originate in HD! Important for News as people want it in HD these days!

Yep the State Opening is a OB. I am always amused by this rather dubious claim that people want news in HD. It's fair enough for the main studios but consider how much of the news is actually in a quality very much below even SD quality using either phone footage or interviews using Skype and dodgy connections. People watch the news for news, not beautifully shot speeches to camera that's virtually all you get if you wait for the reporter plus HD uplink truck to arrive.

Yep the State Opening is a OB. I am always amused by this rather dubious claim that people want news in HD. It's fair enough for the main studios but consider how much of the news is actually in a quality very much below even SD quality using either phone footage or interviews using Skype and dodgy connections. People watch the news for news, not beautifully shot speeches to camera that's virtually all you get if you wait for the reporter plus HD uplink truck to arrive.

its the way of things though and the BBC are making a good effort (albeit slowly due to money), to upgrade their 'in the field' reporter teams to HD for national news, so one day anything originating by the BBC will be in HD and only video they have 'aquired' from somewhere else (such as a moblie phone (although a few are capable of at least 720p HD now) or another countries broadcaster), may not be HD then!

And there is good point being made that news in HD is more appealing for the viewer - and gives authority to the interviewer/ reporter.

But if all you have for a breaking news item is a phone - well that will (and Must ) be Used.

Well there will soon be a time when a good number of moblies will be 1080i HD capable, so im sure even that wont be so much of an issue. Granted a 1080i camera on a phone will never be as good qually as a 1080i broadcast quallity camera, but it will give the impession of being better than SD at least!

There are recurring comments from some forum members on here that ask 'why would we want the news to be HD'.

Well my reply to them is - why wouldn't you want anything on TV to not be HD? Just like we expect all channels to be widescreen these days, in the future I think we'll expect channels to be HD by default.

I can remember when BBC News 24 (as it was) went widescreen on digital television, for years it was just studio shots that were widescreen, with outside material in 4:3 (or stretched to 14:9). But now we take widescreen news for granted.

As lotrjw says, many mobile phones on sale are already capable of filming in HD.

There are recurring comments from some forum members on here that ask 'why would we want the news to be HD'.

Well my reply to them is - why wouldn't you want anything on TV to not be HD? Just like we expect all channels to be widescreen these days, in the future I think we'll expect channels to be HD by default.

I can remember when BBC News 24 (as it was) went widescreen on digital television, for years it was just studio shots that were widescreen, with outside material in 4:3 (or stretched to 14:9). But now we take widescreen news for granted.

As lotrjw says, many mobile phones on sale are already capable of filming in HD.

Having the numpties in the houses of parliament in HD will add nothing to the quality of the show.

Garbage in Garbage out springs to mind, all it will do is increase the costs of coverage for the event.

I for one would rather the extra costs went on quality factual programmes rather than PR exercises.

Having the numpties in the houses of parliament in HD will add nothing to the quality of the show.

Garbage in Garbage out springs to mind, all it will do is increase the costs of coverage for the event.

I for one would rather the extra costs went on quality factual programmes rather than PR exercises.

if the camera heads were changed though we would at least get a better quallity SD image as it would be a downscale to 704*576 not 352*576 scaled up to 704*576 as we most likely get now! the rest of the chain can be done later when its cheaper to do so!

Much depends upon who is providing the coverage and whether they deem it worthwhile to do so - if I am correct and it is indeed Millbank Studios (ITV) then they might see no commercial reason to do so.

None of the new channels announced so far would persuade me to rush out and buy a Freeview HD tuner or recorder. I stopped watching BBC3 when they cancelled Ideal and 2 Pints of Lager. The few BBC4 programmes I watch consist almost entirely of archive recordings. I don't have any use for the children's channels and consider BBC to be the dullest of the four news channels available on Freeview.

And yet in spite of the large number of channels at their disposal I'm often forced to catch up with BBC programmes I've missed on the grossly inferior iPlayer, or download them illegally if I want to view them in HD.

And yet in spite of the large number of channels at their disposal I'm often forced to catch up with BBC programmes I've missed on the grossly inferior iPlayer, or download them illegally if I want to view them in HD.

Well it's your fault you are missing these programmes since by your own admission you won't buy a Freeview HD recorder.

Well it's your fault you are missing these programmes since by your own admission you won't buy a Freeview HD recorder.

They're considerably more expensive than SD recorders at present. I also suffer from dementia so would probably forget to set the timer on the recorder anyway.

I don't have that problem with Channel 4. If I miss the first showing I can often watch it later on +1 and if I miss that can often watch it on More4 and if I forget that can watch it on 4seven, although not in HD of course.

My old DVD recorder just died so I am seriously considering purchasing a Freeview HD recorder but none of the channels announced so far have swung it for me.

They're considerably more expensive than SD recorders at present. I also suffer from dementia so would probably forget to set the timer on the recorder anyway.

I don't have that problem with Channel 4. If I miss the first showing I can often watch it later on +1 and if I miss that can often watch it on More4 and if I forget that can watch it on 4seven, although not in HD of course.

You complain about HD recorder prices and iPlayer low quality and yet your solution on non BBC channels is to watch what you missed on non HD channels. Some of these channels have significantly poorer picture quality than BBC SD channels. Wouldn't iPlayer give as good a result?

I don't want the BBC to follow suit. +1 channels are a waste of precious bandwidth (record it or use iPlayer) and I don't want endless repeats like More4 and 4seven.

Also if your dementia is bad enough that you forget to set the timer on the recorder, won't you also forget that you didn't watch the programme anyway and forget that you ever wanted to watch it? (Not trying to belittle your condition, old lady near my parents has severe dementia and it is terrible for all concerned.)